Housman helpful

AE Housman was a fine classicist, a difficult man, an atheist, and the author of some memorable crystal clear and beautiful lyrics in A Shropshire Lad and some other volumes. This one breathes, not Christianity but Epicureanism. Not pleasure-loving, as is generally thought, but a balance between pain and pleasure, and based on the atomic theory of Democritus - hence

Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.

Anyway, I like the thought of making all the personal connections we can while we are here, alive and able to do it.

From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now-- for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart--
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.